Randolph Stow
| birth_place = Geraldton]], Western Australia, Australia | death_date = May | death_place = Harwich, Essex, England, United Kingdom | resting_place = | occupation = | language = | nationality = | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = University of Western Australia | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = To the Islands (1958) | spouse(s) = | partner(s) = | children = | relative(s) = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Miles Franklin Award (1958) Patrick White Award (1979) | signature = | signature_alt = | website = | portaldisp = }} Julian Randolph Stow (November 28, 1935 - May 29, 2010) was an award winning Australian poet and novelist.William Grono & Dennis Haskell, "Solitry writer Randolph Stow chose silence (obituary), The Australian, june 1, 2010. Web, Dec. 8, 2016. Life Youth & education Stow was born in Geraldton, Western Australia. He attended Geraldton Primary and High schools, Guildford Grammar School, the University of Western Australia, and the University of Sydney. During his undergraduate years in Western Australia he wrote 2 novels and a collection of poetry, which were published in London by Macdonald & Co. Career After graduating, he taught English Literature at the University of Adelaide, the University of Western Australia and the University of Leeds. Ne also worked on an Aboriginal mission]] in the Kimberley]], which he used as background for his 3rd novelm To the Islands. Stow further worked as an assistant to an anthropologist, Charles Julius, and cadet patrol officer in the Trobriand Islands. In the Trobriands he suffered a mental and physical breakdown that led to his repatriation to Australia. Twenty years later, he used these last experiences in his novel Visitants. England and America Stow's first visit to England took place in 1960, after which he returned several times to Australia. Tourmaline, his 4th novel, was completed in Leeds in 1962. In 1964 and 1965 he travelled in North America on a Harkness Fellowship, including a sojourn in Aztec, New Mexico, during which he wrote one of his best known novels, The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea. While living in Perth, Western Australia, in 1966, he wrote his popular children's book Midnite. From 1969 to 1981 he lived at East Bergholt in Suffolk in England, his ancestral county, and he used traditional tales from that area to inform his novel The Girl Green as Elderflower. The last decades of his life he spent in nearby Harwich, the setting for his final novel The Suburbs of Hell. He last visited Australia in 1974. Private life A deeply private person, Stow's life was dogged at times by loneliness and depression (including two suicide attempts), probable alcoholism, an addiction to prescription drugs, and a struggle to come to come to terms with his homosexuality in a time when it was oppressed. He died in England of a pulmonary embolism after being diagnosed with liver cancer at the age of 74.The Australian, 31 May 2010 Recognition His novel To the Islands won the Miles Franklin Award for 1958.Suzie Gibson. The Case for Randolph Stow's To the Islands. The Conversation, 24 June 2014. He was awarded the Patrick White Award in 1979. As well as producing fiction, poetry, and numerous book reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, he also wrote libretti for musical theatre works by Peter Maxwell Davies. A considerable number of Randolph Stow's poems are listed in the State Library of Western Australia online catalogueCatalogue: State Library of WA & WA Health Libraries Network with indications where they have been anthologised. Awards * Australian Literature Society gold medal, 1957, 1958 * 1958 Miles Franklin Literary Award * Britannica—Australia award, 1966 * Grace Leven Prize, 1969 * 1979 Patrick White Award * 1989 The Randolph Stow Young Writers Award was established in his honour to encourage school students in the Geraldton region of Western Australia to write. Publications Poetry *''Act One: Poems''. London: Macdonald, 1957. *''Outrider: Poems, 1956–1962''. London: Macdonald, 1962. *''A Counterfeit Silence: Selected poems''. Sydney & London: Angus & Robertson, 1969. *''The Land's Meaning: New selected poems'' (edited by John Kinsella). Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Press, 2012. Novels *''A Haunted Land''. London: Macdonald, 1956; New York: Macmillan, 1957. *''The Bystander''. London: Macdonald, 1957. *''To the Islands''.London: Macdonald, 1958 **revised, London: Secker & Warburg, 1982; New York: Taplinger, 1982. *''Tourmaline''. London: Macdonald, 1963. *''The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea''. London: Macdonald, 1965. *''Visitants: A novel''. London: Secker & Warburg, 1979; New York: Taplinger, 1979. *''The Girl Green as Elderflower''. London: Secker & Warburg, 1980; New York: Viking, 1980. *''The Suburbs of Hell: A novel''. London: Secker & Warburg, 1984; Richmond, Vic: Heinemann, 1984; New York: Taplinger, 1984. Juvenile *''Midnite: The story of a wild colonial boy''. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1967. Librettos *''Eight Songs for a Mad King''. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1971. *''Miss Donnithorne's Maggot''. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1974. Edited *''Australian Poetry, 1964''. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1964. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Randolph Stow, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Dec. 5, 2016. Audio / video *''Randolph Stow Reads from His Own Work'' (45). St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1974. *''Randolph Stow: A country of islands'' (VHS). Sydney: Artwrite Pictures, 1987. *''Midnite: The story of a wild colonial boy'' (CD; read by Francis Greenslade). Hawthorn, Vic: Louis Braille Audio, 2007. Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat. See also *List of Australian poets References * Cary, Gabrielle Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family, University of Queensland Press, 2014 * Falkiner, Suzanne Mick: A Life of Randolph Stow, University of Western Australia Press, 2016 Notes External links ;Poems *"Landfall" *Randolph Stow (1935-2010): Two poems at Reeling & Writing ;About *Randolph Stow at Text Publishing *"Solitary writer Randolph Stow chose silence (obituary), The Australian *"Uncovering the inner life of Randolph Stow," at Radio National Category:1935 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Alumni of the University of Leeds Category:Australian opera librettists Category:Australian people of English descent Category:Deaths from cancer in England Category:Deaths from liver cancer Category:People educated at Guildford Grammar School Category:Harkness Fellows Category:People from Geraldton Category:University of Western Australia alumni Category:Writers from Western Australia Category:Miles Franklin Award winners Category:Patrick White Award winners Category:ALS Gold Medal winners Category:20th-century Australian novelists Category:20th-century Australian poets Category:Australian male poets Category:20th-century dramatists and playwrights Category:Australian male novelists Category:Male dramatists and playwrights Category:Randolph Stow Category:20th-century poets Category:Australian poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets